Large bodies of water and the large surface areas that they occupy present many opportunities for energy extraction. Wind turbines represent one type of energy converter, but a second type of energy converter utilizes the motion of the water's waves to produce electrical energy. Examples of this type of energy converter are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,500,176 entitled “Wave Energy Apparatus Having A Venturi Shroud” to one of the present inventors, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. In this application, for shorthand purposes, a type of device that takes motion, such as wind, tides, currents, waves, etc., and converts the motion to energy may be referred to hereafter as a Motion-To-Electrical Energy Transforming Device, or “MTEETD.”
There are many good reasons to engage in research and development efforts concerning energy extraction from the oceans. Ocean waves represent a renewable energy source whose harvesting would not degrade the environment and ecology of the earth. Ocean waves also represent a very concentrated energy source, offering the potential for the harvesting of large amounts of energy using relatively small devices. Most wave energy devices are constrained to use in relatively shallow ocean waters where they may be anchored in some manner to the ocean floor. When anchored to the ocean floor, a wave energy device may create and exploit a tension between the immovable ocean bed and the vertical oscillations of the waves. These types of devices are generally not capable of operating in the deeper parts of the ocean.
Among the many wave energy devices proposed or built, some are able to operate in the deeper parts of the ocean. Many of these devices utilize a buoy at the surface of the ocean, and a submerged component, which, in one way or another, exploits the relatively motionless waters which are found some distance below the ocean's surface to facilitate the extraction of energy from the waves at the surface. Some of these devices utilize submerged turbines that are moved through the still waters by the action of waves above causing the turbines to rotate and generate power.
Currently, buoyant devices like MTEETDs tend to be individually anchored to the seafloor, often by multiple anchors per device, when it is desired that they be kept at an approximately stationary position on the surface of the ocean. And, farms of such buoyant devices also tend to be anchored individually even though they perform the same, or similar, functions and even though the output of their individual processors (e.g. electrical energy) tends to be pooled and sent to shore via a common channel (e.g. a power cable, a hydraulic tube, etc.). Individually anchored devices are problematic in that this may cause damage to the sea bed and the wildlife that inhabit the area, and deployment and maintenance of such anchoring systems can be expensive and time consuming. A better approach would be to have the MTEETDs drift in a formation with only some of the devices anchored. However, both water and wind currents can cause the formation of MTEETDs to become distorted, tangled, and less effective unless a system is put in place to restore the collection of MTEETDs to its formation using a mooring system. At present, no such system exists.